Hey! I'm considering to get good at coding/programming. I have never coded nor programmed in my entire life. So my question is; where do I start? How do I start? Is being good at programming or coding a positive thing? What can coding help me with? ~Zuko
Pick a language, specifically a language that is user friendly and able to do a great number of things and try to familiarize yourself with the basics. Then set out to gradually pickup better ways of doing things until you have an advanced knowledge of the language. Once you've done that you can branch out to other languages until one day you comprehend what you want to. Remember that with any hobby, the beginning is always going to be filled with frustration at an apparent lack of mastery, but if you stick with it you will prevail. As far as your "how will this help me?" or "is it a positive thing?" just imagine it like you would any other hobby. IS woodworking positive? Will it help me? The answer to those questions depends on your perspective on life bud. If you think so, go for it.
Learning a programming language is much like learning a real language. I just finished my first programming class, so although my understanding is a little more basic, as compared to someone like @irritatingness who really helped me understand things a lot better. You need to learn a lot of the keywords of a language. I personally started out with VB, which I know isn't a very practical language, but in a nutshell, programming was basically assigning different variables names and values and then dictating how those variables are going to interact with each other via code statements. I did a lot of calculation-based programming, since it was only an intro class, but honestly, if you have a community college or something nearby and are very committed to learning it, I'd consider picking up a class there.
So my approach to learning was definitely not practical- I wanted to do the cool things with programming as I assume most people who get into it do. I started out wanting to make gaming websites and or my own games when I was like 10. That led to a lot of frustration if I’m being honest, but I kept at it and eventually when I was like 15 I started writing plugins for Minecraft from YouTube tutorials- the code quality was garbage but I was able to build on it and decide that it was something I wanted to continue to do. That’s probably what I’d recommend you do- find something cool you’d like to make. I’m not saying don’t dream big, but don’t dream big- you likely won’t make a new game overnight and be a huge success, start something SMALL but still fun- maybe a text adventure game if you’re set on a game. Run down YouTube tutorials on the topic, it’s almost a guarantee there’s one out there for whatever you wanna make. Try a few different ones if one isn’t working out, google things like this: “insert thing here + stackoverflow” (your best friend for programming as you’ll eventually find if you stick to it). If you get frustrated scope your ideas down smaller, get something simple working and enjoy the rush from that. Also, I’m almost guaranteed to respond to a private PM if you have questions, I’m familiar with Java, C, Python, JavaScript, and a few others that I’m less okay with. I’m traveling right now so it might not be a quick response but I’m always down to help out! Edit: also, to answer your question on what programming can help with- it’s literally almost anything. Even if you don’t think there’s something you can do to improve something with software, I’m sure there is. Even statistical analysis of seemingly useless data can yield interesting results. But also, automation of tedious tasks (excel sheet updating, ugh), parsing of data from text files, reading stock prices and getting alerts automatically, possibilities are endless. That being said, there’s also typically a library someone else wrote already on most ideas, publicly reviewed and maintained code is almost always going to be better than your own, don’t let that get you down, be also be mindful of not reinventing the wheel unless you’re doing it for learning purposes. Using someone else’s code that is open source is definitely okay.
Hey! I am a third year Software Engineering student studying to become a full stack developer! I can answer questions if you have some or give tips on certain languages. I am currently working as a Frontend Developer using Django, Ruby and React.JS so if you have questions about those languages or frameworks, please do ask. I will try to help as much as possible since I have an array of books and PDFs at my disposal.
